110th ♫ | all the things making us sick and tired turn into bubbles and disappear

[phaiinein]

The Murder Game Meme



You know the script. You wake up in a place you've never seen before, with a whole bunch of complete strangers and there's a mysterious voice or a mascot or what have you ready to let you know how things are going to work around here.

The rules are simple: You're trapped here, with no hope of release or rescue. You've been provided with all the basic necessities you need to live comfortably, and all you have to do is settle down and live out the rest of your days here in peace. But if you can't do that -- if you're really so desperate to escape that you'll do anything -- then there's one teeny tiny thing you have to do first.

All you have to do is kill somebody.

But it's not quite that simple. Every death will be followed by a period of investigation, followed by a trial in which the survivors will attempt to solve the mystery and out the culprit. If the survivors guess correctly and out the culprit, the killer is executed and life goes on. But if the survivors guess wrong, then the culprit is free as a bird and everyone else is executed.

Even with the promise of freedom, can you really bring yourself to kill so many other people?

tl;dr: it's a murdergame meme. TIME TO HAVE A BIG OL' MURDERGAME BLAST.


Settings

1. High School A classic! Doesn't matter if you're too old or too young to be in high school -- you've been enrolled and the only way for you to graduate is to kill a fellow student. But hey, the faculties are nice!
2. Tropical Island Weren't you just hankering for a nice tropical vacation? No? Too bad! You're going to have a nice sunny vacation at the beach and if you don't like it, just kill someone and go home. Simple!
3. Prison It doesn't matter if you don't remember committing any crime; you've been tried and found guilty of something or other and now you can go ahead and rot away in jail. If you ever want to see the sunlight again, better put that criminal mind to good use and get rid of your inmates.
4. Mall A huge mall stuffed full of stores, places to eat and all the regular amenities like deadbolted doors and the threat of death. It's like Black Friday but even worse because you can't leave and all the rest of the shoppers might actually kill you for real this time.
5. City Holy shit, you've got the run of a whole city this time around! Maybe with all this room to keep out of each other's way, you'll be able to make sure no one starts killing people. But probably not.
6. Cruise Boat YOU'RE ON A BOAT, MOTHERFUCKER. The accommodation is all five star, even if there's no one around to act as wait staff. The only snag is that you still have this whole murder thing hanging over your head – but on the plus side, they have those little drinks with the umbrellas in, so...
7. Space Station THE FINAL FRONTIER... Maybe you're familiar with space stations like this or maybe all this future tech is fascinating to you. Not like it matters either way, of course, because you won't be getting out of here unless you lay down a murder on someone.
8. Wildcard! None of the above scratch your murder itch? Go wild and come up with your own setting!



Downtime

1. Excuse Me, Who Are You? You've just woken up in this weird place and you have no idea what's going on. But hey -- maybe this stranger's more informed than you. Or maybe you can put your heads together and investigate what's going on.
2. Social Link Go! Well, if you're going to be stuck in here for however long, you might as well get to know the people stuck in here with you. You've got plenty of rooms to explore together and there's enough to do to keep you occupied. How do you plan on passing time without killing each other?
3. Vending Machine Woes Somewhere in this place there's a mysterious vending machine that spits out all manner of bizarre items and occasionally dispenses items that belong to you and the other people trapped here. You've got a fat stack of tokens and nothing to lose.
4. The Corners of My Mind So as it turns out, your lovely hosts have been fiddling with your memories. Maybe you're just discovering this now or maybe you've had a particularly upsetting memory regain you're dealing with.
4. Wildcard! GO WILD AND BE FREE (or as free as you can be here, anyways)



PUTTING THE MURDER IN MURDER GAME

1. Motive Your mysterious overseer has decided there's not nearly enough murder going on and so they've ~helpfully~ given you a little push to do the deed. Maybe one of your loved ones is in danger, maybe they're offering more money than you could ever dream of or they're threatening to reveal your deepest darkest secrets. Whatever is it, would you kill for it?
2. Murder WELL APPARENTLY, YES. Are you a killer or are you being killed? Either way, someone's not walking away from this alive.
3. Body Discovery Rise and shine, murdergame! It's a brand new day and someone's dead. Better get investigating!
4. Trial You know how this one goes. Line up all your evidence and sniff out the killer -- or sit there and sweat and hope no one works out you're the murderer. Will they go down with a confession or put up a fight?
5. Afterparty You've survived another trial, but more of your friends have died. Even without the executions, trials are a stressful enough affair. It's time to destress and lick your wounds and support each other.
6. Mastermind It's the end. It's time to uncover all the mysteries behind this murder game -- and find out just who trapped you here. Are they really an unconnected party, or is the mastermind someone among you...?
7. Freedom Just as it says -- you're finally free, but at what cost? Have those you love been returned to you, or are you still reduced to just those who made it to the end? Are you on your own, or is anyone here to help you? And more importantly, how the hell are you going to get home?
8. Wildcard YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO


OPTIONAL FUN

Lots of murdergames have in-universe public profiles for other characters to get the skinny on yours. If you'd like to fill one out to post with your toplevel, peep at the code below!

<center><b>Name:</b> NAME | <b>TITLE (Super High School Level, Ultimate, Champion, etc)</b> <b>Age:</b> AGE | <b>Species:</b> SPECIES | <b>Occupation:</b> OCCUPATION <b>Likes:</b> LIKES <b>Dislikes:</b> DISLIKES <b>Traits:</b> A HANDFUL OF NOTABLE TRAITS <b>Trivia:</b> A PIECE OF TRIVIA</ul>

Comments

i just think it would be funny if they kept getting in trouble

[fairfortune]

Name: Annaliese | Super High School Level Good Luck | Fortune's Favourite
Age: 23 | Species: Human | Occupation: Wandering Adventurer
Likes: Sea air, unusual flora and fauna, old books
Dislikes: Castles, humid weather, being alone
Traits: Curious, clever, carefree
Trivia: The number of poisonous plants and animals that Annaliese has picked up with her bare hands is, unfortunately, not zero.

[ Annaliese likes Arven – she likes all the kids who are, unfortunately, stuck here as well but Arven in particular has her same brand of restless nosiness so they've gotten into their fair share of investigations-turned-trouble together and she's taken to looking out for him in a big sisterly sort of way. Have they almost died twice already? Yes, but don't worry about it. Occupational murdergame investigator hazard. ]

Arven–! [ So here she is on Monday morning, eyes bright with a look that is beginning to quite clearly mean that she has Found Something that warrants looking into. ] You aren't busy right now, are you? There's something I think you need to see.

[friendwich]

[And in turn Arven likes Annaliese- she reminds him a little bit of his lil' buddy. That same energy and eagerness to get into any trouble they can to get things done. So when she comes up, even though he knows this might be a Bad Idea, he can't help giving her an ear]

I'm free. This gonna get us killed too?

[He sighs, rubbing the side of his head]

[fairfortune]

Not as far as I've been able to tell. But you do know how these things tend to turn on us.

[ At least she's... not self aware, exactly, but she knows exactly what she's leading him into. Whether or not that's a good thing is entirely up to you to decide, dear reader.

She tilts her head a bit though, and gives him a merry, conspiratorial sort of smile. ]

If you're worried about the danger, though, then there's no need to force yourself to come along.

[ Said with a tone that makes it clear she knows there's no way he'll let himself be left behind. ]

[friendwich]

What!? 'Course not, I have your back!

[Called out]

[fairfortune]

That's what I thought you'd say. [ that's her fellow troublemaker!!! ] Come along, then – it's not far.

[ True to her word, it's just down on the bottom floor – the library that'd been open for them right from the start. After being here for all these weeks you'd think there was nothing else for them to find, but Annaliese leads him all the way to the back of the room where the crustiest, dustiest books are. Where nobody else really bothers to go.

It's dingy and dark enough back here that Annaliese has brought along one of the lanterns because I guess this is retroactively Ars Arcanacore now and she lifts up as they go to shine as much light as she can on the damp, dismal bookshelf right at the back. ]

Now... why don't you tell me if you can see anything?

[ It's hard to spot at first, in the dancing light cast by the lantern – but on the cold, stony floor there's a set of footprints clearly too big and widely-spaced to be Annaliese's making their way right into the bookcase and then... vanishing. ]

[friendwich]

[if it was anyone else he'd be worried she was leading him here to a dark corner to do a pokemurder on him. But with her it doesn't occur to him, so he goes to peer at the case.]

Wait... are those footprints?

[Adult man footprints at that....]

...it's a passage, I bet!

[fairfortune]

Exactly. [ IShe has the slightly fond, proud tone of a teacher who's gotten a correct answer back from a student. ] I had much the same thought. It's common for nobles and the like to have such passages installed in their personal quarters, so it seemed strange that one would be here, but...

[ She lifts the lantern a little more, spilling light over the dusty bookshelves. This part of the library is pretty out of the way, sure, but depending on where the passage leads... ]

Perhaps this is a case of accessibility trumping privacy? Could this be a method of traversing the school at speed without being detected?

[friendwich]

Hmm... makes sense- so they can spy on us without us ever seeing them.

[fairfortune]

[ Her smile, perhaps understandably, slides off her face. ]

Mm. It's... unpleasant to imagine that they might have been watching us, even in the moments we were certain we were alone... [ Then, with some evident effort, she hitches the smile back onto her face – for Arven's benefit more than anything. ] But perhaps with a bit of effort, we can make use of it ourselves. At the very least, it should provide a valuable clue. ... ah, if you wouldn't mind...

[ She holds out the lantern for Arven to take. ]

I'd like to see if I can find any sort of trigger or mechanism for the entrance...